Merrill Lynch Has Just Sent You An E-vite...For Identity Theft

On July 17, a device containing confidential employee information, including yours (if you have an at ml dot come e-mail address), was reported stolen from a Merrill Lynch office. It remains at large. Today, someone from ML IT informed the Lynchettes about this breach of security. The writer of the “Personal Information Security Alert” sounded empathetic, but not contrite, which makes sense, since he presumably was not the person who stole the device, and has nothing to apologize for, unless he did, in which case he’ll be looking at the business end of a hissy fit courtesy Stanley O’Neal in due time. OT! The device contains names, social security numbers, ML identification numbers and compensation data. It does not contain home addresses or birthdays, so you will not be getting a “Look Who’s 40!” card from your identity thief. Merrill states that it is actively investigating the problem, so much so that it was too busy to get around writing this email until almost three weeks after the fact. Merilll had pegged the chances of the data being compromised at “extremely remote” and weren’t going to say anything about it, but caught a late-viewing of Live Free or Die Hard and figured it’d be best to fess up. Just in case it’s the beginning of the fire sale. Here it is, people: We’re offering $100 to whoever can find the device and deliver it to us, so that we might use the information within to blackmail certain Merrill employees who’ve late become thorns in our asses (no names, for now, but here’s a hint: this ML GWM employee once sparred in an alleyway with Carney after a tiff broke out regarding who was next on stage at an open mic night in Bayonne, not far from the office where the object in question was stolen, coincidentally). And also so we can update our bonus bumper. Letter of regret, after the jump